McKay was able to plead guilty to a lesser charge because the stab wounds he inflicted on the victim were superficial, said Stinson.

The lawyer added that the victim also did not want to have anything to do with the case.

Bouncer gets jail after pleading guilty to aggravated assault

Posted Nov 10, 2014 on www.cbc.ca

It was supposed to be the first day of Scott Russell Denny's trial when he instead submitted a guilty plea to aggravated assault.

Denny, a nightclub bouncer, told the court that he overdid his mauling of Myles MacIntosh a few hours before the latter died.

MacIntosh, who was about to be married, was celebrating the upcoming big event of his life with his friends.

Unfortunately, in the wake of the celebration, he got separated from his friends and ended up at the pub crawl bus being managed by Denny.

The two, who have had a lot to drink, ended fighting each other with Denny giving MacIntosh a very bad beating.

Other people present tried to stop Denny but were not able to.

MacIntosh eventually left the bus, fell into the South Saskatchewan River and drowned.

For his admission, Denny, who was defended by Saskatoon lawyer Brian Pfefferle, was meted with a sentence of two years to be followed by a probation, also of two years.

Denny, however, only has a year remaining to serve after he was given credit for time spent on remand.

Man convicted of child pornography, faces more charges

Posted Sep 18, 2014 on www.thestarphoenix.com

More charges have been filed against Justin Gryba, who was convicted and sentenced of charges related to child pornography last year.

This after the police was finally able to open his hard drive which had a military-grade encryption.

The new charges he is facing are making and possessing child pornography and voyeurism.

Gryba was a multi-awarded youth volunteer but things changed when a search in his home resulted to the discovery of pornographic materials as well as the hard drive, which police could not open at that time.

He pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child pornography and was handed a less than two-year sentence.

However, the threat of more charges to be filed had always loomed for Gryba as the police had been working hard at breaking open his hard drive which they believed contained more pornographic images.

The hard drive was finally opened in July, prompting the new charges.

Saskatoon defence lawyer Morris Bodnar had said back then that the hard drive was difficult to access and that not even Gryba could open it.

Man admits to abducting and attacking woman he was supposed to marry

Posted Sep 16, 2014 on www.thestarphoenix.com

Clinton McLaughlin submitted a guilty plea to charges of aggravated assault and kidnapping of Mariana Cracogna, the woman he was formerly engaged to.

A maximum of 14-year sentence looms for McLaughlin while Saskatoon defence lawyer Mike Nolin is keeping mum on the number of years that he will be seeking for his client.

His sentencing will be on November 21.

This is not the first time that McLaughlin has been charged with such a crime.

In January, he was also charged with illegally detaining another woman and assaulting her with a coat hanger.

Inmate gets nine months more of jail time for escaping

Posted Aug 02, 2014 on www.leaderpost.com

Shaun William Wilton will be spending nine more months in jail for escaping from the Regina Correctional Centre where he has been serving a one-year sentence for earlier convictions.

This after he pleaded guilty to the charge of unlawfully at large.

Wilton has already been serving almost three months of his one-year sentence when he left his assigned group tasked to work at the grounds outside the fence of the jail.

Except for saying that what he did was dumb, Wilton refused to say why he did it.

Dave Armstrong, a criminal defence lawyer in Regina who is defending for Wilton, said his client did not want to reveal the reason why he walked away from the correctional facility.

Canada Lawyer News

Woman jailed for fraud amounting to about half a million dollars

Holly Jean Cardinal was meted with a three-year prison term following her guilty plea of having stolen $260,000 from a veterinary clinic wherein she was working as an administrator.

However, the Guardian Veterinary Centre was not the only employer that the 54-year-old Cardinal stole from because while she was working there, she was also undergoing trial for having embezzled $296,000 from her previous employer, the Allen Services and Contracting Ltd, where she had been working as a bookkeeper for a long time.

The judge found it aggravating that Cardinal continued to commit fraud with her new employer while she was undergoing trial for the same crime she committed from her previous employer.

In fact, she had pleaded guilty to those charges on the day she was asked by the vet clinic to leave under the suspicion that she was stealing from them.

The vet office, however, could not nail her for embezzlement for lack of evidence.

Cardinal confessed to stealing from the vet clinic while she was serving her sentence for her first fraud conviction.

Walter Raponi, a criminal lawyer in Edmonton, said that Cardinal resorted to stealing from her employers after she turned to gambling following a relationship that became abusive.

Calgary lawyers worried for their clients' health

Posted Jun 30, 2015 on www.huffingtonpost.ca

Calgary lawyers Shamsher Kothari and Stephen Bitzer are asking for a sentence of between eight to 10 years for their clients who have been convicted for their involvement in a Ponzi scheme considered as one of the biggest in Canada.

Kothari fears that his client, Milowe Brost, 61, might die in jail due to his poor health should he be given a longer sentence.

Bitzer, for his part, said that even a 10-year sentence is too long for his 71-year-old client, Gary Sorenson.

The lawyer added that 10 years is akin to a life sentence for Sorenson at his age.

Brost and Sorenson were convicted last February of fraud and theft while Brost was also found liable of laundering money.

The sentencing judge is expected to make a decision later as the court has yet to review about 800 requests for restitution from victims.

Man refutes murder allegations

Posted Jun 29, 2015 on www.cbc.ca

Kevin Rubletz is denying that he had a hand in the death of his former girlfriend, Jessica Newman, whose body was found in May.

Newman was first reported missing in March before her body was found in a ditch.

Rubletz and Newman shared a child and had been reportedly locked in a custody battle.

Calgary criminal lawyer Brendan Miller is representing Rubletz, who is facing a second-degree murder in relation to Newman's death.

Miller said that he is still waiting for the disclosure from the Crown and that there is a possibility that his client will be seeking bail.

Nepal citizens who are working in Canada on a temporary permit should be given a reprieve, according to Calgary immigration lawyer Raj Sharma.

Sharma said that the Canadian government should do something for the foreign workers from Nepal which recently suffered from a very strong earthquake.

The lawyer has proposed to have the foreign workers from Nepal be given permanent residency as some of them already had their permits expiring.

He said that a little less than 400 Nepalese are working in Canada under the temporary foreign worker program.

Sharma added that with the catastrophe, it will not be appropriate to be sending them back to Nepal.

Custody ends for young murder convict

Posted Mar 27, 2015 on www.therecord.com

A young man, who was convicted for second-degree murder, will soon be integrated back into the community as he starts with the next phase of his sentence which is community supervision.

The youth was sentenced to a little less than two years in jail and a five-year community supervision for the stabbing death of Larry McDonald, 49.

The convict, who is now 21 years old, cannot be named as he was only 16 when he stabbed McDonald several times in the back.

The victim was trying to intervene in an argument between the youth and his older girlfriend.

A report showed how the youth has been making progress in changing for the better by taking part in all rehabilitative programs available for him while in jail.

As soon as he gets out of jail, he will live with his mother and has to abide by various conditions including a curfew.

Kitchener defence lawyer Craig Parry said the youth understands that his return to society will not be easy considering that he had spent about five years of his life in custody. He had previously spent about three years in jail while his case had gone through the court.